15

The implications of what Gale is suggesting settle quietly around the room. You can see the reaction playing out on people's faces. The expressions range from pleasure to distress, from sorrow to satisfaction.

"The majority of the workers are citizens from Two," says Beetee neutrally.

"So what?" says Gale. "We'll never be able to trust them again."

"They should at least have a chance to surrender," says Lyme.

"Well, that's a luxury we weren't given when they fire-bombed Twelve, but you're all so much cozier with the Capitol here," says Gale. By the look on Lyme's face, I think she might shoot him, or at least take a swing. She'd probably have the upper hand, too, with all her training. But her anger only seems to infuriate him and he yells, "We watched children burn to death and there was nothing we could do!"

I have to close my eyes a minute, as the image rips through me. It has the desired effect. I want everyone in that mountain dead. Am about to say so. But then...I'm also a girl from District 12. Not President Snow. I can't help it. I can't condemn someone to the death he's suggesting. "Gale," I say, taking his arm and trying to speak in a reasonable tone. "The Nut's an old mine. It'd be like causing a massive coal mining accident." Surely the words are enough to make anyone from 12 think twice about the plan.

"But not so quick as the one that killed our fathers," he retorts. "Is that everyone's problem? That our enemies might have a few hours to reflect on the fact that they're dying, instead of just being blown to bits?"

Back in the old days, when we were nothing more than a couple of kids hunting outside of 12, Gale said things like this and worse. But then they were just words. Here, put into practice, they become deeds that can never be reversed.

"You don't know how those District Two people ended up in the Nut," I say. "They may have been coerced. They may be held against their will. Some are our own spies. Will you kill them, too?"

"I would sacrifice a few, yes, to take out the rest of them," he replies. "And if I were a spy in there, I'd say, 'Bring on the avalanches!'"

I know he's telling the truth. That Gale would sacrifice his life in this way for the cause - no one doubts it. Perhaps we'd all do the same if we were the spies and given the choice. I guess I would. But it's a coldhearted decision to make for other people and those who love them.

"You said we had two choices," Boggs tells him. "To trap them or to flush them out. I say we try to avalanche the mountain but leave the train tunnel alone. People can escape into the square, where we'll be waiting for them."

"Heavily armed, I hope," says Gale. "You can be sure they'll be."

"Heavily armed. We'll take them prisoner," agrees Boggs.

"Let's bring Thirteen into the loop now," Beetee suggests. "Let President Coin weigh in."

"She'll want to block the tunnel," says Gale with conviction.

"Yes, most likely. But you know, Peeta did have a point in his propos. About the dangers of killing ourselves off. I've been playing with some numbers. Factoring in the casualties and the wounded and...I think it's at least worth a conversation," says Beetee.

Only a handful of people are invited to be part of that conversation. Gale and I are released with the rest. I take him hunting so he can blow off some steam, but he's not talking about it. Probably too angry with me for countering him.

The call does happen, a decision is made, and by evening I'm suited up in my Mockingjay outfit, with my bow slung over my shoulder and an earpiece that connects me to Haymitch in 13 - just in case a good opportunity for a propo arises. We wait on the roof of the Justice Building with a clear view of our target.

Our hoverplanes are initially ignored by the commanders in the Nut, because in the past they've been little more trouble than flies buzzing around a honeypot. But after two rounds of bombings in the higher elevations of the mountain, the planes have their attention. By the time the Capitol's antiaircraft weapons begin to fire, it's already too late.

Gale's plan exceeds anyone's expectations. Beetee was right about being unable to control the avalanches once they'd been set in motion. The mountainsides are naturally unstable, but weakened by the explosions, they seem almost fluid. Whole sections of the Nut collapse before our eyes, obliterating any sign that human beings have ever set foot on the place. We stand speechless, tiny and insignificant, as waves of stone thunder down the mountain. Burying the entrances under tons of rock. Raising a cloud of dirt and debris that blackens the sky. Turning the Nut into a tomb.

I imagine the hell inside the mountain. Sirens wailing. Lights flickering into darkness. Stone dust choking the air. The shrieks of panicked, trapped beings stumbling madly for a way out, only to find the entrances, the launchpad, the ventilation shafts themselves clogged with earth and rock trying to force its way in. Live wires flung free, fires breaking out, rubble making a familiar path a maze. People slamming, shoving, scrambling like ants as the hill presses in, threatening to crush their fragile shells.

"Katniss?" Haymitch's voice is in my earpiece. I try to answer back and find both of my hands are clamped tightly over my mouth. "Katniss!"

On the day my father died, the sirens went off during my school lunch. No one waited for dismissal, or was expected to. The response to a mine accident was something outside the control of even the Capitol. I ran to Prim's class. I still remember her, tiny at seven, very pale, but sitting straight up with her hands folded on her desk. Waiting for me to collect her as I'd promised I would if the sirens ever sounded. She sprang out of her seat, grabbed my coat sleeve, and we wove through the streams of people pouring out onto the streets to pool at the main entrance of the mine. We found our mother clenching the rope that had been hastily strung to keep the crowd back. In retrospect, I guess I should have known there was a problem right then. Because why were we looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?

The elevators were screeching, burning up and down their cables as they vomited smoke-blackened miners into the light of day. With each group came cries of relief, relatives diving under the rope to lead off their husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings. We stood in the freezing air as the afternoon turned overcast, a light snow dusted the earth. The elevators moved more slowly now and disgorged fewer beings. I knelt on the ground and pressed my hands into the cinders, wanting so badly to pull my father free. If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, I don't know it. The wounded. The bodies. The waiting through the night. Blankets put around your shoulders by strangers. A mug of something hot that you don't drink. And then finally, at dawn, the grieved expression on the face of the mine captain that could only mean one thing.

What did we just do?

"Katniss! Are you there?" Haymitch is probably making plans to have me fitted for a head shackle at this very moment.

I drop my hands. "Yes."

"Get inside. Just in case the Capitol tries to retaliate with what's left of its air force," he instructs.

"Yes," I repeat. Everyone on the roof, except for the soldiers manning the machine guns, begin to make their way inside. As I descend the stairs, I can't help brushing my fingers along the unblemished white marble walls. So cold and beautiful. Even in the Capitol, there's nothing to match the magnificence of this old building. But there is no give to the surface - only my flesh yields, my warmth taken. Stone conquers people every time.

I sit at the base of one of the gigantic pillars in the great entrance hall. Through the doors I can see the white expanse of marble that leads to the steps on the square. I remember how sick I was the day Peeta and I accepted congratulations there for winning the Games. Worn down by the Victory Tour, failing in my attempt to calm the districts, facing the memories of Clove and Cato, particularly Cato's gruesome, slow death by mutts.

Boggs crouches down beside me, his skin pale in the shadows. "We didn't bomb the train tunnel, you know. Some of them will probably get out."

"And then we'll shoot them when they show their faces?" I ask.

"Only if we have to," he answers.

"We could send in trains ourselves. Help evacuate the wounded," I say.

"No. It was decided to leave the tunnel in their hands. That way they can use all the tracks to bring people out," says Boggs. "Besides, it will give us time to get the rest of our soldiers to the square."

A few hours ago, the square was a no-man's-land, the front line of the fight between the rebels and the Peacekeepers. When Coin gave approval for Gale's plan, the rebels launched a heated attack and drove the Capitol forces back several blocks so that we would control the train station in the event that the Nut fell. Well, it's fallen. The reality has sunk in. Any survivors will escape to the square. I can hear the gunfire starting again, as the Peacekeepers are no doubt trying to fight their way in to rescue their comrades. Our own soldiers are being brought in to counter this.

"You're cold," says Boggs. "I'll see if I can find a blanket." He goes before I can protest. I don't want a blanket, even if the marble continues to leech my body heat.

"Katniss," says Haymitch in my ear.

"Still here," I answer.

"Interesting turn of events with Peeta this afternoon. Thought you'd want to know," he says. Interesting isn't good. It isn't better. But I don't really have any choice but to listen. "We showed him that clip of you singing 'The Hanging Tree.' It was never aired, so the Capitol couldn't use it when he was being hijacked. He says he recognized the song."

For a moment, my heart skips a beat. Then I realize it's just more tracker jacker serum confusion. "He couldn't, Haymitch. He never heard me sing that song."

"Not you. Your father. He heard him singing it one day when he came to trade at the bakery. Peeta was small, probably six or seven, but he remembered it because he was specially listening to see if the birds stopped singing," says Haymitch. "Guess they did."

Six or seven. That would have been before my mother banned the song. Maybe even right around the time I was learning it. "Was I there, too?"

"Don't think so. No mention of you anyway. But it's the first connection to you that hasn't triggered some mental meltdown," says Haymitch. "It's something, at least, Katniss."

My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta's muddled consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders. I miss him so badly it hurts.

The gunfire's really picking up outside. Gale hurries by with a group of rebels, eagerly headed for the battle. I don't petition to join the fighters, not that they would let me. I have no stomach for it anyway, no heat in my blood. I wish Peeta was here - the old Peeta - because he would be able to articulate why it is so wrong to be exchanging fire when people, any people, are trying to claw their way out of the mountain. Or is my own history making me too sensitive? Aren't we at war? Isn't this just another way to kill our enemies?

Night falls quickly. Huge, bright spotlights are turned on, illuminating the square. Every bulb must be burning at full wattage inside the train station as well. Even from my position across the square, I can see clearly through the plate-glass front of the long, narrow building. It would be impossible to miss the arrival of a train, or even a single person. But hours pass and no one comes. With each minute, it becomes harder to imagine that anyone survived the assault on the Nut.

It's well after midnight when Cressida comes to attach a special microphone to my costume. "What's this for?" I ask.

Haymitch's voice comes on to explain. "I know you're not going to like this, but we need you to make a speech."

"A speech?" I say, immediately feeling queasy.

"I'll feed it to you, line by line," he assures me. "You'll just have to repeat what I say. Look, there's no sign of life from that mountain. We've won, but the fighting's continuing. So we thought if you went out on the steps of the Justice Building and laid it out - told everybody that the Nut's defeated, that the Capitol's presence in District Two is finished - you might be able to get the rest of their forces to surrender."

I peer at the darkness beyond the square. "I can't even see their forces."

"That's what the mike's for," he says. "You'll be broadcast, both your voice through their emergency audio system, and your image wherever people have access to a screen."

I know there are a couple of huge screens here on the square. I saw them on the Victory Tour. It might work, if I were good at this sort of thing. Which I'm not. They tried to feed me lines in those early experiments with the propos, too, and it was a flop.

"You could save a lot of lives, Katniss," Haymitch says finally.

"All right. I'll give it a try," I tell him.

It's strange standing outside at the top of the stairs, fully costumed, brightly lit, but with no visible audience to deliver my speech to. Like I'm doing a show for the moon.

"Let's make this quick," says Haymitch. "You're too exposed."

My television crew, positioned out in the square with special cameras, indicates that they're ready. I tell Haymitch to go ahead, then click on my mike and listen carefully to him dictate the first line of the speech. A huge image of me lights up one of the screens over the square as I begin. "People of District Two, this is Katniss Everdeen speaking to you from the steps of your Justice Building, where - "

The pair of trains comes screeching into the train station side by side. As the doors slide open, people tumble out in a cloud of smoke they've brought from the Nut. They must have had at least an inkling of what would await them at the square, because you can see them trying to act evasively. Most of them flatten on the floor, and a spray of bullets inside the station takes out the lights. They've come armed, as Gale predicted, but they've come wounded as well. The moans can be heard in the otherwise silent night air.

Someone kills the lights on the stairs, leaving me in the protection of shadow. A flame blooms inside the station - one of the trains must actually be on fire - and a thick, black smoke billows against the windows. Left with no choice, the people begin to push out into the square, choking but defiantly waving their guns. My eyes dart around the rooftops that ring the square. Every one of them has been fortified with rebel-manned machine gun nests. Moonlight glints off oiled barrels.

A young man staggers out from the station, one hand pressed against a bloody cloth at his cheek, the other dragging a gun. When he trips and falls to his face, I see the scorch marks down the back of his shirt, the red flesh beneath. And suddenly, he's just another burn victim from a mine accident.

My feet fly down the steps and I take off running for him. "Stop!" I yell at the rebels. "Hold your fire!" The words echo around the square and beyond as the mike amplifies my voice. "Stop!" I'm nearing the young man, reaching down to help him, when he drags himself up to his knees and trains his gun on my head.

I instinctively back up a few steps, raise my bow over my head to show my intention was harmless. Now that he has both hands on his gun, I notice the ragged hole in his cheek where something - falling stone maybe - punctured the flesh. He smells of burning things, hair and meat and fuel. His eyes are crazed with pain and fear.

"Freeze," Haymitch's voice whispers in my ear. I follow his order, realizing that this is what all of District 2, all of Panem maybe, must be seeing at the moment. The Mockingjay at the mercy of a man with nothing to lose.

His garbled speech is barely comprehensible. "Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you."

The rest of the world recedes. There's only me looking into the wretched eyes of the man from the Nut who asks for one reason. Surely I should be able to come up with thousands. But the words that make it to my lips are "I can't."

Logically, the next thing that should happen is the man pulling the trigger. But he's perplexed, trying to make sense of my words. I experience my own confusion as I realize what I've said is entirely true, and the noble impulse that carried me across the square is replaced by despair. "I can't. That's the problem, isn't it?" I lower my bow. "We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We've got every reason to kill each other. So do it. Make the Capitol happy. I'm done killing their slaves for them." I drop my bow on the ground and give it a nudge with my boot. It slides across the stone and comes to rest at his knees.

"I'm not their slave," the man mutters.

"I am," I say. "That's why I killed Cato...and he killed Thresh...and he killed Clove...and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games."

Peeta. On the rooftop the night before our first Hunger Games. He understood it all before we'd even set foot in the arena. I hope he's watching now, that he remembers that night as it happened, and maybe forgives me when I die.

"Keep talking. Tell them about watching the mountain go down," Haymitch insists.

"When I saw that mountain fall tonight, I thought...they've done it again. Got me to kill you - the people in the districts. But why did I do it? District Twelve and District Two have no fight except the one the Capitol gave us." The young man blinks at me uncomprehendingly. I sink on my knees before him, my voice low and urgent. "And why are you fighting with the rebels on the rooftops? With Lyme, who was your victor? With people who were your neighbors, maybe even your family?"

"I don't know," says the man. But he doesn't take his gun off me.

I rise and turn slowly in a circle, addressing the machine guns. "And you up there? I come from a mining town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?"

"Who is the enemy?" whispers Haymitch.

"These people" - I indicate the wounded bodies on the square - " are not your enemy!" I whip back around to the train station. "The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it's the Capitol! This is our chance to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it!"

The cameras are tight on me as I reach out my hands to the man, to the wounded, to the reluctant rebels across Panem. "Please! Join us!"

My words hang in the air. I look to the screen, hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd.

Instead I watch myself get shot on television.